Hyderabad: On the very first ball of 11th over of Punjab Kings’ innings against Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL 2023 game, tearaway pacer Umran Malik broke the bails while castling Harpreet Brar.
After Hyderabad got their first victory — an eight-wicket win, top-order batter Rahul Tripathi, who played a fantastic knock, gifted the broken bails to Umran.
In the match, the speedster picked 2/32 in his four overs as Hyderabad restricted Punjab to 143/9, before Tripathi made 74 not out to chase down the total in 17.1 overs.
“Probably, I have broken stumps with tennis balls on a few occasions. But in the IPL this is second or third. I had broken one or two bails in the last IPL. It also happened when I was playing for India. You just keep praying that I get to break bails like this in future,” said Umran in a video posted by the IPL’s official social media accounts.
“Yes, I am happy, I am bowling at the right areas and I will try to bowl slowers and yorkers in death overs. The boundary was shorter at one side, where I thought will lose runs, but captain (Aiden Markram) asked me to bowl in that area so I bowled there. But that created chances of getting wickets. We will continue to work on our plans and give better performance,” he added.
Meanwhile, Tripathi came in when Hyderabad were at 45/2 in 8.3 overs. But he took his time to get going and then accelerated to be unbeaten at 74 off 48 balls, hitting ten fours and three sixes at a strike-rate of 154.17.
“Yes, in the start, I took time. But after playing some balls and understanding how the pitch is playing, I got some boundaries and did a good chase, with the run rate not being that high. The plan was to hit one-two boundaries in an over,” the batter said.
“Then I got some good boundaries and the chase went well. It feels good to win after the first two tough games and now we will try to keep this momentum up,” he added.
Hyderabad’s next match in IPL 2023 will be against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on April 14.
